Started: 12/31/2019
Completed: 3/23/2019
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: A list of top books for 2019
Review:
I really did not enjoy the narrator, Edoardo Ballerini, who seemed to be moaning plaintively throughout the book. Everyone has there own predilections, but, to me, this seemed to give the book a certain draining quality.
There were some nice twists of phrase and I particularly enjoyed: "He put the ticket into his vampiric device and returned it double punched and drained of value."
The summaries of this book suggest that there is a huge moral question addressed: How do we weigh human lives? This book does not suggest that there is more than one way. It seems to be largely an issue of chance and even more one of opportunity. The main character seemed unable to discern what is truly a matter of life and death and what is not.
This book, in general, is a love story. It uses the Nazi invasion of France as a back drop. I've noticed that poor romances often use dramatic circumstances to force drama into a romance which can hardly stand on its own. I find this romance to be rather hollow (lots of heavy breathing, moments of wrapping one another for safety, and endless longing). It has an odd addition of some sort of comedy of errors due to statements that "could not be made" and misunderstood intentions (coupled with dubious calls to honor). In general, I did not enjoy the book, but felt I was slogging through it looking for something that simply never came.
There was a reference to the Master's School motto (my mother's alma mater...she called it Dobbs), "Do it with thy might."
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